Re: Archaic H. sapiens???

Michael McBroom (bodhi@earthlink.net)
Tue, 07 Jan 1997 13:54:18 -0800

Ralph L Holloway wrote:

> I sort of remember from one of Jeff Laitman's lectures a slide that showed
> a number of the fossil hominids in sagittal section, and I thought that OH
> 5, at least as reconstructed appeaRED WITHIN THE hOMO SAPIENS RANGE FOR
> BASICRANIAL FLEXION. mY POINT IN A PREVIOUS POST WAS THAT i KNOW OF NO
> RELATION BETWEEN THE VARIABILITY OF THAT ANGLE AND SOUND PRODUCTION BEING
> DEMONSTRATED IN ANY LIVING SPECIES, AND THAT i HAVE NEVER SEEN AN
> "ENVELOPe (so sorry for caps lock error), so to speak, for a large sample
> of modern Homo sapiens that would provide the upper and lower limits.

Lieberman does not list much in the way of actual data. He does discuss
the subject in some detail, plus he has a few charts and cites numerous
sources. So I can't really address your question any closer than that
without going to the source material. Unfortunately, our library is a
bit lean in this area. As I recall, in _On the Origins of Language_
(1975), Lieberman goes into a bit more detail regarding the
reconstruction methods.

> > > Being one of those involved in studying the brain endocasts of Homo
> > > habilis since the early '70's, I remember pointing out Broca's area to
> > > Richard Leakey on the KNM-ER 1470 skull. The rest of the Homo habilis
> > > endocasts that I've worked, such as OH 7, OH 13, OH 24, don't have those
> > > regions intact, so i don't know what recent works you are referring to.
> > > Could you elaborate?
> >
> > Only Leakey and Lewin (1993) and Walker and Shipman (1996) refer
> > specifically to KNM-ER 1470. Two other sources I have, Bickerton (1990)
> > and Pinker (1994), refer simply to references citing evidence of Broca's
> > area in Homo habilis. So, most likely they are referring to 1470 as
> > well.
>
> I think I am about to give up here. I was hoping that perhaps you might
> have read my paper on the Paleoneurology of Language published in 1983 in
> Journal of Human Neurobiology, in which I discussed these habilines.

Geez, why didn't you just say so? No I haven't, but I would very much
like to. I'm heading back up to the campus either today or tomorrow, so
I thought I'd look up the above journal in our online catalog. No
luck. I'll have to get a copy of your article through Inter-Library
Loan. Unless you can direct me to a source where it might be on the
'net.

> OH7 lacks the frontal portions. There are no regions with Broca's area intact.
> Ditto OH13. OH24 was crushed flat in roughly five layers, and despite Ron
> Clark's extraordinary skills, the frontal portion is far too distorted
> from the crushing to reconstruct Broca's area. That leaves 1470, which I
> reconstructed for richard leakeey back in 1974, and you will find my slide
> of the lateral aspect in his earliest book. OH 62 has almost no cranial
> fragments. OH 16 is anyone's guess, but you can't find a Broca's region
> thaT ISN'T QUESTIONABLE DUE TO DISTORTION AND FRAGMENTATION OF THE
> ORIGINAL CRANIUM BY THE mASAAI CATTle (woops, sorry again).
> Please tell me what other habilines you or anyone else is referring
> to?

I guess I should have been more clear. Of the books I have in my
personal library, I have been able to find four (I probably have others)
in which Broca's area in H. habilis is discussed. The four books are
the ones I've listed above. Of those four books, Leakey and Lewin, and
Walker and Shipman discuss the evidence for Broca's area in 1470.
Bickerton and Pinker do not cite specific specimens within the text of
their books. Based on your prompting, though, I checked the chapter
notes and found out a bit more. Bickerton doesn't discuss Broca's area
specifically in the chapter notes, but he does have this to say: "With
regard to brain content, fossil hominids show more marked hemispheric
asymmetries than contemporary apes (Holloway and de la Coste-Lareymondie
1982)." And I see that the title of your paper is "Brain endocast
asymmetry in pongids and hominids: Some preliminary findings on the
palaentology of cerebral dominance." _American Journal of Physical
Anthropology_ 58:101-10. Might this be the source he used?

Regarding Homo habilis, on page 353 in Pinker (1994), the author writes:
"Broca's area is large and prominent enough to be visible, as are the
supramarginal and angular gyri . . ., and these areas are larger in the
left hemisphere." His apparent sources for this are Stringer & Andrews
(1988): "Genetic and fossil evidence for the origin of modern humans.
_Science_, 239, 1263-1268; and Stringer (1990) "The emergence of modern
humans." _Scientific American_, December.

All this has prompted me to pull out Tattersall (1995) once again, and
reread the sections on H. habilis to refresh my memory. I had recalled
that there was, and apparently still is, some controversy over just
which specimens really belong to this classification. ER 1470,
according to Tattersall, when it was assigned to H. habilis, stretched
the limits that had previously been defined. Then, a year later ER 1813
is unearthed -- morphologically similar, but with a largely complete,
although much smaller, cranium. Tattersall mentions that it has been
generally accepted to be a female of the species. I'm wondering if
you've had a chance to do an endocast of ER 1813, and if there is any
evidence of Broca's area there? Later in the book, Tattersall mentions
Bernard Woods reexamination of the habilines, and agrees with Woods that
ER 1470 belongs within H. rudolphensis, while ER 1813 should stay where
"she" is. Based on your previous statements, I take it you do not
concur with this view?

Regards,

Michael McBroom
CSUF Linguistics